


To the End of All Taint

by joanamidena (jollyjellyfish)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied Bellamort, One Shot, Spoilers for Deathly Hallows, lots of feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:18:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1233052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollyjellyfish/pseuds/joanamidena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellatrix Lestrange picks up on a strange train of thought as she fights in the Hogwarts Battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the End of All Taint

I remember reading one day that we suffer in three different ways.

Firstly, we have the suffering that comes from our body, which, destined to ruin and liquefy, slowly fades and crumbles within itself. 

Secondly, we have the suffering coming from the outside world, which can slaughter us with forces uncontrollable and implacable. 

Third, we suffer from our relations with people.

For him, this statement was false. At the top of his magnificence, he overcame age and death – his body would not break, his eyes would not falter, his skin would not dry to the bone, his whole existence was already eternal. He did not relate with the ones around him. I do not lie, for any kind of life besides his own was not worth of anything. Perhaps loyalty would be rewarded and failure, punished. But it was enough and no more: no friendship, no trust, no commiseration. 

And the only person in the world that had once harmed him was the dead boy I hated most. Oh, no, that filthy bastard had not stood a chance against my lord, but I loathed the boy, for what he had done to him seventeen years ago. So, he destroyed those assumption of suffering - now the world outside did not offer him any threat, he was to conquer it fully.

But then, I was not like him. 

My body was destined to failure, to rapture, to crack inside my bone-shell, to turn into dust – I was to suffer pain as days went by, I was to end screaming inside – becoming a wizened figure. The world around me offered as many danger as someone like me could bear, for I was skilled, but not immune to wounds, splotches and disturbance.  
For I remember Reading in the same day that the worst suffering was relating with the ones around us.

And I would know that better than anyone. Perhaps this is why this single piece of knowledge has survived years of rotting and forgetting. 

For I have served, I have tried to become a shadow of his majesty, a distorted mirror of his image, offering what I knew of life, humanity, sanity – though I have never let any hope quiver down my body. And as years went by, I bared me of all I once possessed, handing down the pieces of tarnished love and unveiled devotion. And I did not succumb to the glazing wish, I never held a single thought that slipped through my fingers, I held my loyalty tightly and kept going. Did he see it? His mind was far more powerful than anyone else’s, so I do say that yes, he saw it. And for that I am grateful – he didn’t torn me away or stopped me from adulating him, even if I am certain he only did that not to lose a servant as loyal as me. All I was and all I wanted to be. No, I was not like him, I did not deserve more than to be tortured when failing and praised when pleasing. Remaining the most twisted, remaining the most desperate, remaining in my place, to provide him of anything he ever needed. 

And now, the need was for me to fight. I am opening way, as my soul crawls under his feet, as we end this one last battle. It gives me pleasure, a frenzy bursting inside me for he will win, he will end all that should have ended seventeen years ago. No one will oppose his greatness anymore, and oh, that sweet, intoxicating sensation that grows inside me when he is satisfied. 

I turn to fight that bloodtraitor. I cannot but mimic her voice, her irritatingly high voice, I cannot but laugh histerically, for I feel fully realized and no one can take away the glory of serving, of giving every inch of my body to provide satiety for those who aspire fresh, bloody victory. So I laugh, and I laugh for me and for him, and that is how it has been since the start, for I tied myself to him willingly and fully.

My laugh is cut short. 

I fall. 

They told me this was instantaneous. If that is true, how to explain the lasting of this second? I know it is instantaneous. I have seen it before, I have caused it before. Now, though, I am not so sure of anything, time and space seem to merge and turn into one slow swirl around me. My consciousness remains, pure, untouchable - I see him, I see everyone and I know now I am bound to the same fate I gave others. As much as I always expected it, I could never think it would come in such a precious moment: when it seemed universe had reached perfection. I could never think it would come at the peak of the tide, as I marvel and submerge in my lord’s victory. 

Pain rips down my body. Not the first nor the second. The third. I reach now the perfection, only now everything is in unison, everything sintonizes, because I was always a servant and I once thought I gave all of me to him. This moment eclipses everything: I know I didn’t. Only now, in this everlasting second, my wish is fully granted – there is nothing else for me to offer. It is my fate, it was written somewhere dark, obscure, in engraved letters and let to fulfill itself as a propechy once has. This one moment, I have been waiting all my life for this, I do not walk on the tighrope any longer, I do not dwell the abyss of a twisted mind: everything is sharp clear. 

I’m dying for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfiction originally posted on FF.net and edited before being posted here. 
> 
> The theory of the three ways of suffering comes from a book by Sigmund Freud, named ‘Das Unbehagen in der Kultur’ (Civilization and Its Discontents, english title).


End file.
